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Chestnut Ridge Rd, also known as Route 45, is the main street that cuts through Chestnut Ridge, a small town in the suburbs of New York.

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Green Meadow Waldorf School, one of the only private schools in town, sits directly on Chestnut Ridge Rd.

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Also on Chestnut Ridge Rd sits a church, the house of worship to the few christians left in town.

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Not too far down Chestnut Ridge Rd sits one of many a synagogues in this town. Over 50 percent—some even say as much as 75 percent—of the population of Chestnut Ridge is now Orthodox and Hasidic Jew. This was not the case ten years ago.

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Also on Chestnut Ridge road sits the town’s only mosque. It is home to over 200 Muslim worshipers—a population which is also steadily growing.

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Young teenage girls watch the Zikr—a Sufi ceremony honoring Allah—through the upstairs window in the children’s section of the mosque. Parents are required to keep their young children and babies with them during the Zikr, but teenagers are allowed to watch from above, with permission from their parents.

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A whirling dervish from Istanbul performs during the Zikr ceremony. The members of the Jerrahi Order of America meet every Saturday night for dinner, prayers and special ceremonies, including the Zikr. Sheikh Tosun Bayrak, 90, conducts the Zikr ceremony from a seated position.

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Men and women from Jordan, Syria and Bangladesh sit, barely separated by a wobbly hand rail, on the floor of the mosque listening to sheikh Tosun Bayrak give his weekly Sohbet—a talk ranging in topics that he delivers to his followers after dinner and before the ceremonies begin.

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Young girls make their sunset prayer in the dining area of the mosque. Often, there are too many people to fit into the common prayer room and many members find themselves praying in between the tables that have been set for dinner.

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Teenage girls and boys socialize freely upstairs in the children’s area, away from the watchful eye of the adults.

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Nuranisa Rae and her American father, Charles Rae, also known as Habibullah, sit and talk quietly before the Zikr ceremony begins.

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Women prepare and serve dessert

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Nadia Celestine, a senior at Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, reads a book assigned in one of her classes. Nadia’s mother is Turkish and her father is Haitian American. Nadia and her family are long-time members of the Jerrahi Order of America.

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Yasin Alam, a sophomore at Green Meadow Waldorf School, stands before his Spanish class to give a presentation. Yasin’s parents, who are originally from Bangladesh, have been members of the Jerrahi Order of America for many years.

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Abida Khan, a freshman at Green Meadow Waldorf School, was born and raised in New York, though both her parents migrated from Pakistan before she was born. The Khan family have been members of the Jerrahi Order of America since their arrival.

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Nadia Celestine stretches during PE class.

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Yasin Alam looks on as a class mate gives a presentation during Spanish class.

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Nadia Celestine and Aliya Caldwell, the granddaughter of sheikh Tosun Bayrak, sing a round with their friends and fellow classmates during lunch hour in the cafeteria at Green Meadow Waldorf School.

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Lisa Oswald, also known as Aisha, is one of the members who helped establish the Mosque of the Jerrahi Order of America in 1990. She and her husband, Dr. Stephen Oswald, also known as Nur Ali, are the photographer’s parents. They are both American converts and have been Sufi dervishes since the mid-70s. Aisha volunteers at the local church once a month to cook for the Breakfast Program, which serves a hot breakfast to the homeless and poorer members of the town seven days a week.

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Dr. Stephen Oswald (Nur Ali), treats a patient at his New York City office. Nur Ali has been working as a chiropractor and applied kinesiologist in New York for over 30 years. He gave up his acting career to become a chiropractor when his sheikh in Istanbul, Muzafer Efendi, told him to do so.

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Wasek Safieh, from Damascus, Syria has lived in America since the 90s. He works as a real estate developer. Here, Wasek shows Aisha, also a real-estate developer, his newest purchase.

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Nuranisa Rae, the daughter of an American father and Turkish mother, attends to a patient in a birthing clinic in Clifton, New Jersey. She has been a labor and delivery nurse for five years. Like most of the children from the mosque, Nuranisa went to Green Meadow Waldorf School. She graduated in 2005 and went on to study midwifery at the New York University Midwifery School.

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Nuranisa Rae, attends to a mother and her newborn boy in a birthing clinic in Clifton, New Jersey.

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Sara Gordon, the daughter of American converts, speaks to sheikh Tosun Bayrak’s American wife, Jeanne Bayrak, during her bridal shower in April 2016. The mosque members are a colorful mix of Americans, Africans, Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Pakistanis, and, characteristic of America, many “hybrid” families—including half Turkish half/American and half Brazilian/half Irish-American families.

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The younger generation of girls sits at the end of the table and laugh amongst themselves. As with most other groups of immigrants from around the world, each generation becomes more integrated into society, maintaining less and less of the traditions of their parents. For the children of American converts, like Sara Gordon, there was never a cultural hurdle to get over. But other children, like these young girls, have to find the balance.

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Wedding games: teams of four girls competed against each other to see who could make the best wedding dress from a roll of paper towels in 10 minutes. The bride, Sara, and a seamstress, Sophie Gungar—also known as 'Anane' to all of the girls in the comunity, which means grandmother in Turkish—judged the final products.

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The Teapot Gift: a tradition that was started by the unmarried girls in the community, is a teapot stuffed with lingerie. The bride, sometimes unaware of what is inside, must remove the contents of the teapot in front of everyone at the shower.

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After opening all of her bridal shower gifts, Sara must wear the tradition bridal shower hat fashioned from the wrapping paper and ribbons from the gifts.

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Several generations of Muslim women offer prayers and blessings to the bride. These women and girls come from a multitude of countries and cultures, yet all have come together to celebrate the marriage of Sara Gordon to Jamal Halawa, a Palestinian-American from Boston. The bridal shower was a blend of East and West, young and old.

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Several generations of Muslim women offer prayers and blessings to the bride. These women and girls come from a multitude of countries and cultures, yet all have come together to celebrate the marriage of Sara Gordon to Jamal Halawa, a Palestinian-American from Boston. The bridal shower was a blend of East and West, young and old.

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Sophie Gungur recites a special verse from the Quran as a blessing for the new marriage. Her granddaughter, Amina Rae, the daughter of an American father and Turkish mother, sits between her and the bride.

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On May 14, 2016, Sara Gordon, daughter of American-Muslims, Susan and Gilbert Gordon, was married to Palestinian-American Jamal Halawa in a Sufi ceremony, in Chestnut Ridge NY. The Jerrahi Order of America, a sufi “dergah,” was founded by a small group of American-Muslim converts in the 1970s and has since grown to over 200 members. Current members are a robust mix of cultures, nationalities and ethnic backgrounds.

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Sara signs their wedding contract.

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Sara and Jamal hug each other after being pronounced man and wife.